Green Star® Site Assessment Program

Our Site Assessment Program can help you diagnose areas within your workplace that could improve your operational efficiency.

Learn where you can make improvements in your business practices. Green Star® provides on-site assessments for member businesses and organizations. Program staff will come to your facility and work directly with you to assess your waste prevention progress. The team will:

Walk through your facility and identify current waste prevention activities. This helps to bring you closer to earning your Green Star® Award. Green Star® uses a helpful checklist during each site assessment.

Ask questions to learn more about your processes, activities, and behaviors.

Make suggestions about what activities could be undertaken to improve waste prevention

Identify resources that might be helpful in implementing suggestions.

Conduct a complete lighting audit and provide a summary of the potential energy and cost savings, as well as carbon dioxide emissions reductions, acheivable if lighting is upgraded.

Assist you in determining the costs and benefits of implementing certain suggestions.

Provide a written report identifying current activities, suggestions, and resources.

Discuss benefits of Green Star® Awardee status so that you can provide information to peers or supervisors.

Answer any additional questions you might have about the suggestions made.

To prepare for the site assessment, be sure someone is on hand who can answer questions about the following topic areas:

facilities maintenence

custodial practices

waste management/recycling

purchasing

office management

food service (if applicable)

Once the site assessment is complete and Green Star® has provided a follow-up report, we request that your organization submit its Green Star® Award application within 60 days.

Examples of suggestions made to Anchorage businesses during site visits include:

Upgrade fluorescent lighting to include more efficient T-8 lamps. If you replace T-12 lamps with T-8 lamps in a 50,000 sq. ft. facility, you can save $54,000 over the life of the lamps.

Enhance recycling programs by adding materials, such as mixed paper.

Cover solvent sinks/parts and washers when not in use to reduce evaporation of solvents. This reduces health problems, air quality impacts, and the cost of purchasing solvents.

Retrofit EXIT signs with LED lighting. The electricity cost to operate one sign for one year is approximately $2.50 for an LED sign, as compared to an incandescent sign, which costs approximately $35 to operate for a year.

Develop a feedback mechanism so that employees can share ideas and assess progress.

Call us today at (907) 331-0271 ext 1 or email jkuhlmann@akforum.org to schedule a site assessment for your workplace.

An assessment typically takes between one and two hours, depending on the size of your facility and the number of people you would like to involve in the process. For services beyond two hours, Green Star® offers its staff expertise for $65/hour. Site assessments are only available for Green Star® member organizations.